Film Festival Dedicated to D-Cinema (Digital Cinema),
the Standard Cinema Format of the 21st Century

With increasing access to digital tools and new business models booming, audio-visual creators are now given freedom to express themselves freely regardless of age, background, and culture. SKIP CITY INTERNATIONAL D-Cinema FESTIVAL is a competitive festival that focuses solely on the works shot and produced digitally.

The festival, marking the 11th edition since its launch in 2004, seeks and solicits works that explore new potential of digital filmmaking with entertainment value from all over the world. Our objective is to discover the next generation of talent and encourage the development of new audio-visual industry. All screenings are projected with 4K digital cinema projectors in the best screening condition.

The Gateway to Success For Emerging Filmmakers

The festival’s competition categories are Feature Length Competition, Short Length Competition, and Animation Competition, a new category set up this year to discover more talent in wider genres. This year, we have received over 500 submissions from 84 countries and regions for Feature Length Competition. Short Length and Animation Competition categories are open only to the works created by Japanese filmmakers in order to encourage them.

In each competition category, a jury board, which consists of esteemed industry professionals, reviews the nominees during the festival and awards the winners on the last day of the festival. Jury members and various guests from all over the world visit the festival to network and expand the wave of exchange with the audience members.

New Talent that Spread Wings Around the World

Many of our festival alumni went on to earn successful careers domestically and internationally. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the winner of Grand Prize of Feature Length Competition category in 2007 with Climates, won awards with his three consecutive films at Cannes Film Festival; Best Director with Three Monkeys (2008), Grand Jury Prize with Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (2011), and Palme d'Or with Winter Sleeps (2014). Kazuya Shiraishi, the winner of SKIP CITY Award in 2009 with Lost Paradise in Tokyo, went on to direct The Devil's Path (2013), which won many awards in Japan. In addition, several Feature Length Competition nominees, Nono (2012) and Simple Simon (2011) were released theatrically in Japan after the festival premieres. We sincerely hope that more new talent with challenging spirits continues to grab business opportunities and spread their wings around the world.